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A BLESSING
Ministry provides practical help
By LINDA M. LINONIS
hubbard township
Shared Blessings Ministry, a community outreach at Hubbard Church of the Nazarene, started out small and has grown.
That’s good and bad. The ministry is a practical way to help people. The shaky economy has put more people at risk and created even more need.
Pat McPheron, Shared Blessings director, said the project began about seven years ago with Jacqueline Neumann, children’s pastor who is now retired. Church members would give her clothes and other items for the children.
“We decided to make it more of a ministry,” McPheron said. “I raised seven kids on church hand-me-downs.” She noted she knows the need has become more acute as the economy has suffered.
McPheron said the ministry began in a small storage room and now takes up two rooms.
Today, from 9 a.m. to noon, in the fellowship hall of the church located at the corner of Chestnut Ridge Road and state Route 62, one of the ministry’s larger giveaways is planned. There will be clothing for men, women, children and infants, along with toys, kitchen and household items, linens, small appliances, books and videos. “Last year, we had more than 100 people come,” McPheron said, and more than 150 boxes and bags filled with items went out the door. She added that the church doesn’t ask for any proof of need but simply asks that people don’t take items to resell.
The church also has a weekly giveaway from 7 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays in its regular rooms. “There is a big need for children’s items such as clothing, toys, shoes and boots, and we have them,” McPheron said.
McPheron said the church accepts donations from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and Wednesday nights during the giveaway. “We get a good variety from so many sources,” she said, noting donations of garage sale leftovers are appreciated.
“This is for anyone in need ... we want to spread the word,” she said.
McPheron said she wants people to feel welcome and at ease coming to the church. “We’ve been here for 29 years ... since Mother’s Day in 1981,” she said of she and her husband, John. “It had everything we wanted in a church ... we liked it and felt at home.” And that’s the feeling she wants to convey to all who come to the church.
“This a way for the church to share its love,” McPheron said. “We are blessed and want to share what we have.”
Senior Pastor Michael Byus said the Shared Blessings Ministry fulfills a basic premise of the church and that is to help those in need. “We hope the word is getting out,” he said of the church giveaways.
The pastor said the church is blessed because so many people are “great about giving.”
“Ministering to the needy is a basic Christian belief,” he said.
Pastor Byus said Scripture from the Bible relays how giving food, water and clothing to someone in need translates into doing it for Jesus. He cited the passage, “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.” Matthew 25:40